Every American war summed up in a sentence

America has fought in a lot of wars so it can be hard to keep track of all of them. As a quick reference guide, here is every American war, each captured in a single tidy sentence.

American Revolution: The Colonials hated King George and his taxes on tea and so fought to be ruled by President George instead.

Whiskey Rebellion: Americans hated President George and his taxes on whiskey, but Washington won a bloodless victory and kept his tax.

Quasi-War: America didn’t want to pay debts owed to France, so France started stealing ships, America recreated its Navy, and everybody fought until they realized the war was costing everyone more money than anyone was making in profit.

Barbary Wars: Americans fought two wars to navigate the waters north of Africa freely, losing the first and winning the second.

War of 1812: Mad about the British restricting American trade and capturing U.S. sailors, America declared war, lost much of her merchant fleet, watched the White House burn down, and then got what they wanted in the peace treaty anyway.

Andrew Jackson wins the Battle of New Orleans two weeks after the War of 1812 ended.

Mexican-American War: President Polk wanted to double the size of the country, so he picked a fight with Mexico and captured land from Texas to the Pacific.

Utah War: The Army made a show of force, the Mormons massacred a bunch of people, and everyone agreed to replace the Mormon Utah governor with a non-Mormon and forget the whole thing.

Indian Wars: The Native Americans owned land the settlers wanted so brief skirmishes led to full wars where Federal troops used biological warfare and everything ended badly for the Native Americans.

Civil War: The South wanted to keep their slaves and the North wanted to send them to Africa, so everyone fought a war and the South lost.

Photo: Wikipedia

Spanish-American War: A battleship blew up in Havana and a pissed off America invaded Spanish territory in Cuba and won itself a small overseas empire.

Philippine-American War: The Philippines were violently opposed to becoming an American territory, so America killed the Filipinos until they changed their mind.

Border War: A Mexican revolution kept spilling over into America, so Gen. Pershing chased Pancho Villa and the U.S. garrisoned troops along the border.

Banana Wars: American fruit producers supported insurrections throughout Central and South America and U.S. troops backed them up when necessary to protect business interests.

World War I: After European nations fought each other for three years, America showed up, killed the survivors, and declared itself the champion of the world.

Photo: Wikimedia

World War II: The Allies used American manufacturing, British technology, and Russian numbers to defeat the fascists and America began the Nuclear Age by obliterating two cities with atomic bombs.

Photo: Wiki Commons

Korean War: A communist government backed by the Soviet Union and China fought a democratic government backed by the U.S. and others in clashes up and down the peninsula for over three years before settling on a border in roughly the same spot as when the war began.

Photo Credit: US Marine Corps

Dominican Civil War: America participated in another country’s civil war off and on for nearly 50 years.

Vietnam War: An armed resistance to French rule turned into a proxy war of America vs. China and Russia that some Americans still don’t admit they lost despite Vietnam now being a single communist state.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Grenada: America jumped into another country’s civil war and declared itself the winner, maybe or maybe not saving the lives of some American medical students studying there.

Panama: Panama’s civil war threatened American forces and the Panama canal, so after a Marine lieutenant was killed America invaded, dismantled the ruling government, and captured the dictator in under three weeks.

Gulf War: An anti-American, oil-rich dictator invaded the land of a Pro-American, oil-rich monarch, so America led a massive air assault followed by a ground invasion that destroyed the world’s fourth largest army in 100 hours.

Photo: Wikimedia

Somali Civil War: America joined a peacekeeping force to try to curb clan warfare but left amid mounting casualties.

Bosnian Civil War: America joined a peacekeeping force that successfully curbed ethnic fighting in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Kosovo War: America joins an ultimately successful peacekeeping effort aimed at reducing ethnic fighting in Kosovo and demilitarizing a terrorist group in the country.

War on Terror: After suffering the worst single terror attack in history, America declared war on terrorism and has been fighting ever since, most prominently in Iraq and Afghanistan but also in smaller conflicts throughout Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia.